The Eastern Health Board yesterday contradicted its own social workers when it denied that 2,400 children were on the waiting list for social work services in the region. It also appeared to contradict the findings of one of its own internal reports which suggested last year that children were being left in "high-risk" situations. Yesterday, more than 1,000 children and parents from all over the country protested in Dublin at the failure of governments to implement more than a handful of the recommendations of the Inquiry into the Kilkenny Incest Case, published five years ago.
The protest was organised by the ISPCC which referred to the "shocking revelations" by social workers that 2,400 children in the EHB region were awaiting the attention of a social worker.
The EHB later said it wished to "categorically refute the statement by Mr Cian O Tighearnaigh of the ISPCC that there are over 2,000 child cases in the EHB's area which have not been allocated to social workers.
The figures used by Mr O Tighearnaigh, however, were first released at the recent conference of the Irish Association of Social Workers, many of whose members work in the EHB's childcare services. The IASW said it had obtained confirmation of the figure from social workers in the IMPACT trade union.
A joint EHB/IMPACT report completed last year, but not published generally, refers to "a crisis in the availability of placements for children which leads to the possibility that children who are assessed as requiring care may be left in situations of high risk because few, if any, placements are available". Yesterday's protest began at Molesworth Street, outside Leinster House. Some participants say they were surprised that no TDs had come out of Leinster House to see the demonstration.
Children and parents - mostly children - came from all parts of the country. They included 33 children from Mullingar, Co Westmeath, where an ISPCC project recently won an award from the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.
The children chanted slogans such as "Child abuse - no more secrets" and "Children's rights - act now."